The present invention relates generally to the field of arboriculture, and more particularly, to a method of eliminating unwanted seed and fruit debris from a variety of flowering trees classified as dicots.
Dicots, commonly referred to as hardwood trees, are grown throughout the world for commercial wood and fiber production and for landscape enhancement. However, subsequent to fertilization of the plant""s flowers during springtime, many dicots produce considerable seed and fruit debris upon the ground in their immediate vicinity. Often, the seed and fruit debris is a nuisance that must be cleared away, particularly if it falls upon walkways or the like. Attempts to deflower such trees prior to fertilization have heretofore involved spraying individual flowers of the tree with such chemicals as FLOREL(copyright). This procedure is time consuming, requires the use of people lifters for positioning an chemical application specialist adjacent to the tree canopy for access to the flowers, and presents environmental concerns.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to reduce the likelihood of successful fertilization in dicots by interrupting the normal process of male and female flower maturation, male pollen production, and female flower fertilization to prevent the ultimate formation of fruit heads and seed.
It is another object of the present invention to obviate the need for manually deflowering dicots by providing a method for doing so chemically.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for deflowering dicots that can be performed from the ground.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method of chemically deflowering dicots using micro- and macro-injection techniques.
The deflowering method of the present invention comprises the steps of evaluating the physiological maturity of male and female flowers of a dicot, and injecting a solution containing synthetic indolebutyric acid (IBA) into vascular tissue of the dicot when male and female flowers approach physiological maturity at or prior to fertilization. In accordance with a preferred procedure, the injected solution is about 4% synthetic IBA in water, and five milliliters of the solution is injected into the vascular tissue through each of a plurality of injection holes bored at spaced intervals about the circumference of the trunk of the dicot. The method causes delayed shedding of staminate flowers and early abortion or suppression of pistillate flowers, thereby preventing the development of fruit heads and the production of seed.